Pitchers to watch this season?

[elktonnick]

Letting Strahm go is right up there on the top 5 bone head moves by Bloom

[MongoLikeSox]

Letting Strahm go is right up there on the top 5 bone head moves by Bloom

Right? I mean, what did he want the most from anything else? A shot to start. What did we have? A lost season. In the end, he was a burnt out and spent as anyone else on the team.

[longgame]

Letting Strahm go is right up there on the top 5 bone head moves by Bloom

Right? I mean, what did he want the most from anything else? A shot to start. What did we have? A lost season. In the end, he was a burnt out and spent as anyone else on the team.

\
The Sox's pitching "philosophy" strikes again.  Get starters who can't go more than 4 or 5 innings, burn out the bullpen, keep the worst guy of the bunch and let the rest of them go.  Utter incompetence. 

[SeaBeachFred]

Letting Strahm go is right up there on the top 5 bone head moves by Bloom

Right? I mean, what did he want the most from anything else? A shot to start. What did we have? A lost season. In the end, he was a burnt out and spent as anyone else on the team.

\
The Sox's pitching "philosophy" strikes again.  Get starters who can't go more than 4 or 5 innings, burn out the bullpen, keep the worst guy of the bunch and let the rest of them go.  Utter incompetence.

When when the hell will Henry get his head out of his ass and fired Bloom, a total moron and incompetent, and send that filthy rotten cheater packing as well?  He fired Cora after tjhe 2019 season and then rehired him?  What the hell for?  As for Bloom, he has long ago outlived his utter unusefullness.  This team is going to suck  even worse than last season.

[MongoLikeSox]

I just took a tour of 3-week in stats of our ex-Sox runaways/castaways. Eovaldi, Wacha, Hill, Seabold(Demoted), Taylor and Diekman are off to very rough starts. German still can't throw strikes in AAA and Jay Groome(AAA) has had 2 out of 4 starts that reminded me of Kluber's line from last night.

Strahm, Barnes and Thad Ward are doing fairly well.

Strahm is the early gem of the group. He got his 3rd start, but it didn't go so well as the first two. 2.2IP, 3R. Looks like their not stretching him out yet. Pitch counts in mid 60's. Still, ERA at 2.13.

[longgame]

Interesting.  Still early for Wacha and Eovaldi but I would have thought Wacha would have been sharper.  Eovaldi has been in decline for a few years but he's a competitor.

Barnes always has good stretches.  It's just in critical spots where he blows up.  It's early for him too, but in the wrong way.  Strahm seemed like he was a keeper. 

[MongoLikeSox]

Interesting.  Still early for Wacha and Eovaldi but I would have thought Wacha would have been sharper.  Eovaldi has been in decline for a few years but he's a competitor.

Barnes always has good stretches.  It's just in critical spots where he blows up.  It's early for him too, but in the wrong way.  Strahm seemed like he was a keeper.

I agree that Strahm was a keeper. It's a shame he did not work out here.

The Phillies are dedicated to this experiment. They stretched him out to 80+ pitches in his rebound start, going 5.1IP. Gave up 3 earnies, but struck out 11. I think he pitches again tonight or tomorrow, IIRC.

[Sea Dog 23]

One area Bloom did not really address in the off-season, as we all know, was the rotation. The starters going into May look like an aging MASH unit with high era's and they can't miss many bats at all. Looking at the FA for 2024, there are some good ones, maybe not the star power of the 2023 free agents.  Names that look like possible fits for Sox - Blake Snell, Kyle Gibson, Giolito, Ohtani, Scherzer, Syndegaard, and Urena.  The complete list : 

Matthew Boyd (33)
Carlos Carrasco (37)
Mike Clevinger (33)
Alex Cobb (36) â€" $10MM club option with a $2MM buyout*
Johnny Cueto (38) â€" $10.5MM club option with a $2.5MM buyout
Zach Davies (31)
Jack Flaherty (28)
Chris Flexen (29)
Kyle Gibson (36)
Lucas Giolito (29)
Sonny Gray (34)
Zack Greinke (40)
Andrew Heaney (33) â€" $13MM+ player option with a $500K buyout
Kyle Hendricks (34) â€" $16MM club option with a $1.5MM buyout
Rich Hill (44)
Jakob Junis (31)
Brad Keller (28)
Corey Kluber (38) â€" $11MM club option
Clayton Kershaw (36)
Michael Lorenzen (32)
Seth Lugo (34) â€" $7.5MM player option
Lance Lynn (37) â€" $18MM club option with a $1MM buyout*
Kenta Maeda (35)
Tyler Mahle (29)
Sean Manaea (32) â€" can opt out of remaining one year and $12.5MM
German Marquez (29) â€" $16MM club option with a $2.5MM buyout
Nick Martinez (33) â€" two-year, $32MM club option; if declined, two-year, $16MM player option
Wade Miley (37) â€" $10MM mutual option with a $1MM buyout
Frankie Montas (31)
Jordan Montgomery (31)
Charlie Morton (40) â€" $20MM club option (no buyout)
Aaron Nola (31)
Jake Odorizzi (34)*
Shohei Ohtani (29)
James Paxton (34)
Martin Perez (33)*
Eduardo Rodriguez (31) â€" can opt out of remaining three years and $49MM*
Hyun-Jin Ryu (37)*
Luis Severino (30)
Max Scherzer (39) â€" can opt out of remaining one year, $43,333,334*
Blake Snell (31)
Ross Stripling (34) â€" can opt out of remaining one year, $12.5MM
Marcus Stroman (33) â€" can opt out of remaining one year, $21MM*
Noah Syndergaard (31)*
Jose Ureña (32) â€" $4.5MM club option with a $500K buyout
Julio Urias (27)
Vince Velasquez (32)
Michael Wacha (32) â€" two-year, $32MM club option; if team declines, Wacha has $6.5MM player option (contract also contains $6MM player options in 2025-26)
Luke Weaver (30)
Alex Wood (33)

[MongoLikeSox]

Well, if anything else, that list illustrates the importance of developing pitching. Free Agents in baseball have some age on them. Even the younger ones. So you better develop or trade for some Starters or get used to a busy medical staff. The alternative is old MASH units, or at least the risk of having one as your staff.

Meanwhile, the other half does not have it any better on the injury front. Gotham's rotation is without Montas, Severino and Rodon. Rodon's signing baffled me, but that's another day.

btw - Strahm went 5.1 IP 2H 0R in his start on only 60 pitches (odd) on Thursday Night. I'm not saying it was an obvious outcome, but sometimes giving someone you like a chance pays off. Sometimes it doesn't.

[longgame]

Strahm seems to be the only who believes he's a bona fide starter but he's certainly getting people on board with his performance so far this year.

As for free agent pitchers, if for some reason Bloom is still around, he'll go for the oldest guys he can get for a bargain.

[Sea Dog 23]

Sox picked up a RH bullpen guy today.  Zach Littell was with the Rangers' AAA affiliate.  We got him for cash.  Stats - 2.25 ERA at AAA Round Rock.  Prior stops with Twins and Giants.  While in the majors for five seasons, 4.08 era and a 1.326 WHIP.

This transaction happened on same day Kutter Crawford went on the 15 day IL.

[MongoLikeSox]

I guess the Strahm experiment is over? Last two outings were bull pen. Oddly enough. 5 days apart. 2IP and 1IP.

Eovaldi is on fire. 9, 8 and 8.2 IP. No runs. Struck out 12 in the most recent game.
Wacha's close to being back on track. Two Quality starts with 1R, 5H and 5BB combined.
Perez is closer to normal than his 2022 year so far at 4.28 ERA, IIRC.
Groome had a great rebound start in AAA, but rebounded from that and resumed his 2023 ways. Not pretty.
Thad Ward recovered from his hiccup start for a while, but has had two straight rough outings. 
Noah Song is still in Mystery Mode.
Bazardo had a rough couple games last month in AAA, but recovered well and is throwing 1-2 inning outings. 1R, 3H in 8IP. Total ERA down to 2.33.
Seabold piping up with a 4.56 ERA for the Rockies in a hybrid role. Actually won a game recently. League is hitting .295 against him.

[MongoLikeSox]

An update on the Noah Song situation came out a few weeks ago, but I missed it. Dombrowski is playing this one rather shrewdly.  The Phillies have placed him on the 60-day IL, which is likely retroactive to the beginning of the season. He has resumed throwing at least as of 3 weeks ago. That fits in well with him being around the FCL guys for practice reps. When they deem him fit for action, he'll get his rehab stint of up to 30 days.

It's getting crunch time for that situation. He needs to spend 90 days on the Phillies active MLB roster. Do the math on this one. They've got about 3 weeks left and he has not made a single rehab appearance. If he does not make it in time, he'll got through Waivers which will have it's own set of complexity to it. I don't remember the detail, but a team cannot claim him and tuck him away somewhere. He's gotta be active or on the 40-man roster or something to that extent. So we could maybe get him back? Crunch time is nearing.

Interesting side thought. So we could have done things a little bit different when we snagged Whitlock? Might have been less risky and easier to manage. All's we heard was that he had to be on the team all year. Apparently that's not really true.

[Sea Dog 23]

Another Sox pitcher bites the dust.  Wyatt Mills to unders TJS.  That puts him on the shelf, did not pitch at all this year and won't pitch through almost all of 2024.  For the life of me, I can't figure out how Bloom gets these pitchers.  I get it, he is told to stay under budget.  He passes on difference makers like Wacha and Eovaldi because they demand around $18mil.  Yet his prize signings are like Kluber and Paxton, get them on the cheap ticket, older, oft-injured guys, that's what he does.  Paxton has worked out this year, but he missed all, or nearly all of 2022. 

Lou Merloni said it the other day," that's what he (Bloom) does, and he is persistent to stay the course".  That's until we talk about him later as a part of Sox history, like Cherri and DD.

[MongoLikeSox]

Another Sox pitcher bites the dust.  Wyatt Mills to unders TJS.  That puts him on the shelf, did not pitch at all this year and won't pitch through almost all of 2024.  For the life of me, I can't figure out how Bloom gets these pitchers.  I get it, he is told to stay under budget.  He passes on difference makers like Wacha and Eovaldi because they demand around $18mil.  Yet his prize signings are like Kluber and Paxton, get them on the cheap ticket, older, oft-injured guys, that's what he does.  Paxton has worked out this year, but he missed all, or nearly all of 2022. 

Lou Merloni said it the other day," that's what he (Bloom) does, and he is persistent to stay the course".  That's until we talk about him later as a part of Sox history, like Cherri and DD.

I'm still baffled at the pounce job they did to "land" Joely Rodriquez for $4M very early in the Free Agency period. I hated it the minute it happened. I don't even know what the hell is going on with that now. No rehab for 6 days. I saw a few that didn't go well, but none of the good ones.

I think Chaim got his direction shifted per directive from above this past off season, but not soon enough into the off season. Pouncing on Joely and trading for Park right away was mind boggling. The Kluber of Eovaldi/Wacha risk did not pan out, but they saved money. I wonder if they look at this was a wash.

I looked at each pitcher that I listed at the beginning of the thread. It's not a total bomb from Bloom, but it's not at all close to an overall win, either. Especially with the decisions that were actual challenging decisions and not gimmes.